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You missed out. Had you become a pilot you could baselessly speculate with the rest of us, instead you actually know WTF you’re talking about.

I work in the pigging industry on the inspection side. I'll add my.02. Never thought of a pig as a delivery vehicle for a bomb but it could happen. However, I believe the line was idle and not making deliveries? The pig would have to travel with the pressure of the gas flow. So Germany would need to be taking deliveries. If the line was idle they couldnt push the pig since the displaced gas had no where to go. I found this site when I was trying to be an AF pilot. Now I am posting on my post military career. Baseops has now become full circle.

where's my explosive expert? To my untrained eye that looks like a small shaped charge that was actioned upon detention of a target, igniting it's warhead in front of the target (left center of image)...the ignition point being indicated by the thin smoke trail which plumes into a full detonation on, and actually slightly behind (from the shaped charge's approach aspect) the target. That leaves a debris cloud projecting aft (image left) of the explosion. Something liking...oh i dunno...a modern manpad might do something like this. If that's the case, the vehicle recording this video got VERY lucky, or the engagement vehicle is significantly advanced...like, a lot...notice the complete lack of launch, acceleration, or tracking smoke trail. This was no SA-7 shot. Hmmmmm. From a completely different angle and timing, this could look like an explosively formed penetrator igniting while being carried by the 'target' drone. In that case the ignition imaged is actually the forming explosion and the whisp of trail leading left is the shaped penetrator departing the explosion from image from right to left. I'm less inclined to believe that, as the size of the drone does not indicate that it's carrying such a munition. But I'm just a herk dude.

Quoted for posterity. Having absorbed rounds (which I was later told didn't hit my airplane) over that continent and put wheels down in places we "have no presence", certain places can decimate the US military, in it's present set-up, if we keep pretending there is no fight there. I was by no means even close to the tip of the spear. The "just the tip" concept we're employing there right now will do nothing more than get American's killed in yet another local civil war. Either we roll heavy, or we shouldn't roll at all. I'm tired of America's hairy chested bearded men coming back home in body bags because weak dick 'men' in charge aren't sure how to make a decision. It didn't appear to do so. It DIRECTLY did so. With people, and equipment, and tactics, and will power... Instructional Fix: In every presidential debate and senate confirmation hearing: A significantly sized character, with timing unknown to the candidate, full force open hand slaps the candidate so the whole world gets to see how they respond to be humiliated on a world stage. Because that's what certain parts of africa...and china...and the south pacific...and eastern europe... can do to America if they organize themselves correctly. Can we please have man in charge of our country again? Please? Where is a Reagan when you need him?!

Serious question…are all white people the same? If so, I understand the argument for selectively recruiting non-whites. Last I checked, though, we all have our own DIVERSE life experiences prior to service. If there are illegitimate barriers to entry into military service, we should get rid of them. Arbitrarily discriminating based on race or gender (yes, I went there…there’s only 2 and it was assigned way prior to birth) is bullshit. Saying that all white people are the same is just as much bullshit.

To listen to them “so what” about the fact that California and other places are banning the movement of commercial goods with diesel vehicles it’s pretty obvious they don’t actually care what it costs people to live. They’ll just blame shortages of goods and price hikes on corporate profits and move on… Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Nice dig. I can assure you I grew up treating people fairly. And wtf does inclusive even mean?! If you can do the job I want you. Period. Inclusive is socialist jargon. DEI is not about treating people fairy. It’s about quotas, pushing the right people thru training, and pleasing the new woke mob. Diversity by itself doesn’t make anyone stronger or better. That’s inherently a racist idea. we need diversity of THOUGHT and skills, NOT diversity just of race and sex. From my small corner of the AF diversity of thought and skill is sacrificed on the woke alter of sex and race quotas. And yes don’t kid yourself higher leadership does have quotas and all your above examples are bull shit. Look at who is the lead DEI person at the pentagon. It ain’t the picture you paint.

Glad that’s been your experience, but my experience with multiple large companies in the business world has been exactly what I stated. It’s pervasive and unfortunately probably a lot more planted than you think it is.

I mean… there’s several people I’ve flown with in my career who I would encourage to instruct potential/current enemies of our nation… it’d make our jobs a LOT easier. Know what I’m sayin?

If I decided to teach the Russians our tactics during the Cold War would you consider me a traitor? I sure as hell would. China is our enemy. If you train them for financial gain, you are a traitor.

I guess y’all have never seen The World is Not Enough? Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Indeed... Interesting huh. Not as hard as one would think. I think a little more may come out, especially on the intercepted comms side, but Germany appears reluctant to publicly release what they have. That being said, as I said before we know exactly who and how they did it.

No OPSEC: everywhere we go generally makes the news so kinda hard to be sneaky, regardless. TDY rates vary drastically based on aircraft availability (down for maintenance or upgrades), your crew position, type of aircraft, the lunar calendar, your astrological sign, and world/domestic politics. Right now, the C-32 is busy doing lots of work with the midterms. The C-40 has some overlap with midterms and also has been busy ever since Russia vs Ukraine and China vs the world has been heating up. I can't speak as much toward the C-37 since I don't have a lot of overlap with their squadron, but I imagine they are busy, too. November will be very busy for everyone. Missions generally stay on frag. But I've also, literally, flown around to the other end of the world and extended for several days when the DV needed to be somewhere else ASAPly. Good news, maintenance reliability is way up with these jets compared to gray tail (especially compared to FRED). They are still airplanes and do occasionally have issues, but the C-40/737 is a beast of a jet. 757 doesn't have too many issues that I can think of recently, either. But it does seem like the C-37A is starting to have more and more issues pop up, but that's just a hunch, might also be the brand new C-37B's showing them up. If you are the FNG you will be most at risk for a deployment. That doesn't mean there will be one waiting for you, though. We pretty much own a dedicated position over at the AMD so depending on your (lack of) luck/timing you could end up going to Shaw for 4-6 months. As you work your way up the crew position pyramid you will find yourself (generally) more and more busy. Just like the rest of the Air Force, there are never enough IPs to go around. Honestly, being a copilot here is the best gig ever: no stress with mission planning, put the gear up, see the world, and very little office work stress (lots of FGO's as SELO's, schedulers, and training officers doing jobs they already did as LTs). At the end of the day, you're an Uber driver...but at least it's an Uber Black.

For years folks have warned about the spread of VEOs to Africa, a historically under-resourced AOR. Our haphazard withdrawal from Afghanistan appears to have emboldened these folks to grow their influence. We have added forces but the administration promised us they would be able to handle this with an "over the horizon" strategy which appears to be failing miserably. The U.S. Is Losing Yet Another ‘War on Terror’ It is the Rolling Stone so as usual take with a grain of salt. However, those of us who deployed and operated there will see the indicators of a growing problem that WILL manifest itself in the near future.

I get your point. We (average Americans) don't really have control where our goods are made. Nobody held a gun to my face and forced me to buy a Chinese made number two pencil. However, I can personally tell China no when they ask me to learn them something for money. Don't question my sincerity, question those who made it this way.

China is our enemy because China, specifically the CCP, has decided we’re their enemy. Not that recommending someone on the internet go read a book ever actually worked, but you might take a look at The Hundred Year Marathon by Michael Pillsbury. They’ve been telling us for 70 years we’re their greatest enemy and we (the collective we), have been too busy trying to make money off them to actually listen.

Then by all means, go teach the Chinese how to fly. Just don't get mad if I call you a traitor. Just because I'm forced (please don't tell me I can choose to purchase non Chinese made goods) to buy goods from China, doesn't mean they have my best interests at heart.

You said diversity of thought; so I guess my first question to you would be do you think that a person's experiences will change how they think? If yes, than my second question would be do you believe that being a woman, or being black or Hispanic, might create experiences that you would not otherwise have being white, or being a man. In my opinion the answer to both questions is yes. For the second one, I will never be able to describe to you the experience of being pregnant, or being a child of immigrant parents, or an immigrant myself. Now in your eyes those might not be experiences relevant to military warfighting. But I would disagree with you there. Because at the end of the day an enormous part of the military's machine is leadership. And leadership is a human skill with human problems and human implications. Every single commander I know will tell you that fixing and flying airplanes is the easy part of their job. 90% of their time is spent on the human problems. So if your airman aren't top performing because they have concerns dealing with where they are going to pump breast milk during the duty day or they have concerns with how and when they file their citizenship paperwork tied to their enlistment, etc..... I would argue that we are not working at our best. When we had the draft we could afford to not give a fuck about people and their individual concerns. Its been an all volunteer force for a half century now and year over year it has been increasingly difficult to recruit. So I guess we have to treat people with respect now and actually give a shit about them and what's happening in their life.

Ive found that outside of the military the majority of the US population and US government rejects the theory of great power competition and believes that we have an economic competitor relationship to China vs an adversarial relationship. He makes a good point. We may go to work every day planning how to destroy China but that is not how the majority of US society or the USG thinks. So is China our enemy simply because some random general in the DoD said they are our enemy? Or is there more to substantiate that.

If China is our enemy, then why are they one of our largest trading partners?…which of course helps grow their economy, and in turn, their military/capabilities? How many products do you personally buy that are made in China or have components made in China? If China is our “enemy” then you could have fooled me.

CENTCOM MOD 16 mandating the CV19 vaccine was implemented in January 2022. MOD 15 dated April 2020 had no such requirement. Dod mandated vaccination for active duty was already in effect by the time MOD 16 came out. Imo the CENTCOM CV19 vaccine requirement was added in Jan 2022 to further coerce civilian deployers subject to Biden's Executive Order 14042 from Sept 2021 requiring all Federal workers to get vaccinated. Lots of good info here regarding the current status of the E.O. as it pertains to federal workers. https://www.saferfederalworkforce.gov/new/

Just focus on flying, you’ll get to where you want to go. Whether it’s making big money flying contract in BFE, or huge money on an airbus for the airlines. It’s a great time to be a pilot.

A little online research indicates that there is such a thing as a pipeline "pig" which can zip through the pipe, propelled by the gas pressure, usually for cleaning and inspection. Easy to rig with a bomb. If true for the NS pipes, it would be a much easier solution than using a submarine. And because the gas only flows in one direction, it would have had to come from the Russian side. Getting four to go off at the same time might be tricky More Intel needed.

Saw a Reddit post a few days ago from an American who went from 0 hours to Spirit FO in 4 years. Did it by going to a FAA part-whatever school and then building hours in China by teaching aviation cadets. Supposing a smattering of those cadets end up in PLAAF cockpits, I rather doubt that the fellow realizes he aided and abetted an adversary and contributed to putting American lives in danger.

This one hits close to home. AFRICOM is the red headed step child for the Joint Staff. Practically no assigned forces, they must always borrow forces from EUCOM or CENTCOM. The rotational forces are under resourced and no one gives a shit. It doesn’t help that we withdrew all forces out of Somalia at the end of Trump’s presidency, failed at over the horizon support, and now are moving back into Somalia with a yet to be clear strategy. This goes beyond the VEO arguement, the Chinese have encroached into Djibouti and Kenya, they even have military bases in those countries. I’m not sure what the right answer is, but we either need to commit or “let them have their desert”.

It’s a continent, not a country. I’m tired of the CT mission/narrative because it’s an unwinnable mission. Fuck it…let them have the desert.

See WaPo expose on 280 retired senior officers working for the UAE.

The glint off something at the tree road intersection, a firing spot with 3 escape routes, seems a logical launching point for whatever smoked this thing. What's interesting is that whatever hit it was smokeless until engagement...similar to a shaped charge. Yeah, no western influence to see here. Move along. I'm just a drone, tracking drone killed by another drone...

Good article, important subject. I’ve fought in in WA, Sahel and EA and offer 2 relevant observations: 1. Impossible to have serious impact on the enemy given high threshold for kinetic strikes (even those supporting partner TICs). Things that would be O4/O5 level TEA in the IZ/AFG heyday are GCC, DoS main and ambassador level. Lost strike opportunities and loss of partner trust are the norm. 2. We are fighting cross-border VEOs using a “strategy” restricted by borders. For example, AQIM moves freely between Niger, Mali, Algeria (and others) but authorities are drastically different in those 3 countries, and matched to the task in none. Unless we can fix those issues we’ll lose out there, but not before spending more blood and treasure.

There are behaviors that happen within the organization that whether we like it or not that are discriminatory. Example: there are still many officers who believe shaving waivers somehow make someone less of an airman, despite the fact that it is a MEDICAL waiver used to treat what can be a very serious skin condition that disproportionately effects 1 subcategory of people. And those officers STILL believe that people on shaving waivers should be prevented from solid opportunities for career growth like being a first shirt, recruiting, working for the T-Birds, appearing in a news article. Neurodiversity is becoming another hot topic now. Why is the DoD still discriminating against adult ADHD when it's been proven this is a neurological condition that has strengths but is also professionally overcomable. Outside the AF though it's going to be your DEI officers who are going to ensure that if you are a disabled veteran taking classes at university you get accomodations to help you take exams. Perhaps you need a service animal, or more time because you write with your left hand now due to an injury. DEI officers are out in the Dept of Labor and US Chamber of Commerce right now arguing to employers how academically powerful military spouses are as an untapped labor resource.

My guess is they also aren't 100% aware of what they're doing as well. Espionage is a tricky art. You need to convince someone that betraying their country is in the interest of public morality . The article is vague but some good concealment on the plan I see already is this is a PMC based out of South Africa, a country that has generally favorable relationships as a neutral party to both the UK and China. It's possible only 1-3 people in the whole operation are actually interacting with any Chinese officers on a human to human basis. The rest are there working as ADAIR or some kind of contract Red Air and believe they are providing valuable training space for some developing African country trying to finally create regional stability; using junk Chinese fighters from the last generation. That's how I would set this up anyway.....

Just trust them. Lol

Meanwhile the Russians are using rape as a tactic. I would argue dropping those two really big bombs on Japan helped win at least one war.

Which is all the antithesis of the “DEI” movement today. “DEI warriors” are the most exclusive, close-minded, hypocritical, racist, sexist, shittiest humans in this country. I could add more adjectives, but those will suffice for now.

Not sure where you come from but where I grew up good leadership was treating people fairly and being inclusive of people who may have been different from the in crowd. It was also seeking a variety of opinions on a matter before making a decision...... Suffice to say winning a dogfight or dropping a bomb has also never won a war.... Rather, a cohesive strategy developed by professionals derived from a wide variety of professional backgrounds and experiences has gotten us much further.

Credit given where due. Good Job.

I was. It was either get the shot or go unemployed.

have you considered swindling other young conservative christian men? I hear it's pretty lucrative...

To piggyback on ViperMan, nuance is great and all, but some things are self evident, no nuance required: - The American political system is better than Russia’s. Despite all our flaws, I’ll take a representative democracy over Putin’s kleptocracy every time. - The liberal world order (again, I’ll remind the less educated amongst us that “liberal” does not refer to US domestic politics here) established after WWII is better than an alternative where strong countries simply take what they want. The “establishment” that Putin and his apologists like to rail against has kept the peace for seven decades. Some of us have become so accustomed to that peace that it’s become hard to believe that it’s not just the de facto state of the world. It’s not. It takes a lot of work. - Invading a sovereign nation, no matter what cultural and ethnic ties you think you have, is wrong. That’s it. No need for discussion (or nuance). Respect for sovereignty is a key to peace in the modern world. It should be defended vigorously by anyone who doesn’t want to see the planet flattened by war. I could go on. Point being, there’s no gray area to hang out in here. No we aren’t perfect. Yes, we have our problems, some of them major. Despite all of that, we are objectively better than the alternative, regardless of which party is in power, regardless of our internal differences. Objectively. Better. Full stop. I choose to support OUR institutions, flawed though they may be, because it’s a far better option than operating in the wilderness of thought where the Russian and Chinese fact twisters want us. There are forces in this world that are true existential threats to our way of life. They are NOT your neighbor with the coexist bumper sticker (naive as he may be) or the Trump flag on his truck. They are not even Nancy Pelosi (who I guarantee you is FAR more of a free market advocate than Putin or Xi), or Mitch McConnell. It continuously blows my mind that some of us continue to point fingers at each other when there is no shit, painfully obvious evil rearing it’s head in the world with despots outright stating their desire to destroy western cultural values. It’s time to recognize what’s right in front of our faces, put our differences aside for a bit, and start pulling in the same direction.

I recently listened to a podcast hosted by the Federalist (right wing), and I was startled by the nonchalance John Davidson was able to claim the US sabotaged the pipeline. He did so without evidence (https://www.spreaker.com/user/10614200/populism-keeps-surging-across-the-west). I posted the link for reference, not as a recommendation to listen to it. Don't. I consider(ed?) the Federalist a legitimate source (albeit right wing), but needless to say, I'll be far more suspect of what else I hear come from them going forward. Why I bring it up is because I see the same thing from some on this message board, and from many others on the right side of the isle (which I am part of). I find this highly incongruent, actually. In my view, this default position has less to do with the goodness or badness of the action per se, and much more to do with the fact that it's being carried out by the Biden administration and is therefore necessarily wrong. Get over it. Putin is the one making threats. Not Europe. Not Biden. Not the USA. Not Trump. Pick your side. Your fear of "risking escalation" strengthens Putin's ability to escalate. Want to see him STFU? Next time he makes a nuclear threat, we indicate we will respond in kind on behalf of Ukraine. Fuck it, let's say we did blow it up: Putin threatens to cut off Europe from gas as strategic leverage, and we blow the pipeline up, thereby taking away his ability to leverage acquiescence from European governments, you know, a "burn the fleet" "shoot the hostage" type of logic. Fairly brilliant if you ask me. Maybe we should blow up NS1 in a couple months. Followed by others as time goes on. Maybe Putin will start to realize that oil flows in one direction, but money flows in the other. Yes, the administration is incompetent, has lost all SA, and seems to be doing its best to drive wedges wherever they can. And yeah, on about 99.9% (repeating of course) of issues, they've made objectively bad decisions. Be that as it may, it doesn't necessarily mean everything they do is wrong by default - all things and decisions should be judged according to their own merit, and in the case of the Russian war in Ukraine, we are doing good things, notwithstanding the likely fact that our spectacle of retreat in Afghanistan probably signaled to Putin (et al) that now would be a good time to get started with those war plans - but that's another discussion. That is what I think is a blind spot on the right - the unwillingness to give any credit even in places where it may be due. Lest we forget, this war started before the current admin was in power. No one on this message board knows - or ever will know - exactly what happened or who sabotaged the pipeline. Unless you're someone special, that is a fact. Another fact is that in each of us there is something that wants the world to be like a Tom Clancy movie - with clear cut lines of conspiracy and wrong doing. That fact is really what drives such strong opinions on matters like this, because in all truth not one of us knows. You don't know because you typed some URL in your interweb browser and read someone else's opinion/analysis. For my part, I strongly, strongly discount the possibility we did it, if for no other reason than the risk/reward ratio is way, way too high. The payoff? Very little. The potential cost if it was discovered that we unilaterally destroyed the pipeline? Well, we just achieved one of Putin's major objectives by getting NATO to act against itself. It's so unlikely, it's crazy and conspiratorial to consider it a possibility, given these realities. Insane even. The chances Putin did it? Nearly 100%. It lets him generate propaganda within and outside his country, and if it is ever discovered for certain that he did blow it up, well there are no political consequences because it belonged to him anyway. So there is a far higher payoff to risk ratio on his side as far as I can tell. All in all, I don't really care. We probably didn't do it, but if we did, I'm fine with it because it ultimately takes away leverage Putin thought he had. Putin is wrong. We are right. He should stop. It's that simple.

Dude it’s because you’re blaming your own country based on theory and conjecture. You’ve come up with a hypothesis based on news articles. Were it an airplane accident, the cultural mantra of “wait until the investigation is complete” would’ve stopped you from publicly drawing conclusions. Yet in this case, you’re willing to do so and throw your own country under the bus. For nothing. That’s why people hate conspiracy theorists.

Outside of the higher fuel load, talking with some of the early cadre, they are able to conduct AAR at much lower speeds than the -10 and -135 (don't know what is class or unclass for their stuff, so I won't post the number I was told). This is a pretty big win for the power deficient receivers.

With some of the last drops of Jeremiah weed being consumed as I write this, a bro and I have been discussing a Worldwide roll-call to finish off the very last bottles of Weed known to be in existence. If you and/or your squadron want to get in on the action, message me. More to follow on other platforms as well.